Space and land in urban are such a treasure, saving in space and construction cost is invaluable. In parking garages, recently most solutions are directed to providing stackable parking system in multi-level garages with elevators to replace conventional garages that have ramps and require larger and complex building structure.
Some stacked parking systems use horizontally moving-on-track lifts, or circular parking silo having a rotating vertical lift to transport cars into stacked bays. These systems have a high demand of lift usage, which relies on a lifting device for each parking and retrieval of a car. In these systems, at any time if the lifting device is out of service because of malfunction or maintenance, no parking or retrieving service can be provided by the system. Moreover, these existing systems have limited bays-per-lift and have space constrains to meet demands of a heavy traffic facility. Furthermore, these systems require fixed blueprints for the facility and have a low adaptability to available existing buildings or storage facilities.
Another type of system uses robotic or non-robotic shuttles to move cars to designated locations. This type of approach can provide dense parking. However, such a system is limited by the number of shuttles that can be used at the same time in order to prevent collision. It also has less systematic controlled movement, and less reliable battery powers in the shuttles. Therefore, shuttle operated systems have limited utility for high traffic capacity facilities.
Other known storage systems move carriers horizontally to designated locations within a facility configured as a matrix. One type system uses carriers having onboard side driving mechanism to drive one carrier against the next carrier to enable the movement. This type of system requires almost all storage spaces being occupied by carriers in order to support the carrier movement, due to the reliance on mutual engagement of neighboring units. Although such a system can support high density storage, such as for storage of payload, it is not suitable for heavy traffic facilities, because the extent of shuffling of the carriers is extensive in a process of moving one carrier from one location to another. Moreover, battery operated onboard driving mechanism requires frequent maintenance. Another type system uses combined upper and lower driving devices to move a carrier engaged between two sets of driving devices. Such system involves complex driving mechanisms and it relies on the driver of the overall system.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved stacked storage system that overcomes the above mentioned deficiencies. It is desirable for a system that is more versatile in its structure blueprint, and has improved operation efficiency and flexibility, and high tolerance to operating conditions of structural components of the system. It is desirable to have a parking system that can handle multiple parking and retrievals at the same time, which are particularly needed for high capacity and heavy traffic facilities.